At beginning, I put those panos in Google Earth. In Google Earth then, those panos just like crystal balls, go inside to browse, or double click the nearby camera icon to slide into another pano. This is the earliest way to view street view. This one is my works of this period.Continue reading →

For race, basically there are two elements, one is distance, the other is the time, most of the events are a fixed distance, runners get less time by their ability to finish, less events have fixed time first, and runners run their farthest distance, but 「Wings For Life World Run」 is another way of running. It’s a worldwide run where everybody starts simultaneously and the finish line chases you!

Instead, the finish line catches up with you. A half hour after the race starts, a moving finish line, the “Catcher Car” chases runners along the course, gradually getting faster until each one is caught. The first runners passed after a few kilometers are the first to celebrate their accomplishments, while the last man and woman to be caught are declared Global Champions. (88.44km is the current record!)

This unique way attract me deeply, although the time is pressing, but I still have to complete the work before the Race. Here is this KMZ file for downloading.

There are three parts of this file, one, open the “Locations” folder, you can browse every tracks; two, open the “Tour” folder, each track have one minute track 3d tour; three, open the “Catcher Car” networklink is the virtual live broadcast, from now on, there will be four sections per day, from UTC 11:00, 17:00, 23:00, and 5:00, every 6 hours of replay, the 25 track simultaneously run around the world in Google Earth, a half hour after the race starts, “Catcher Car” chases runners along the course, the game time display on screen, as well as the “Catcher Car” show the drive distance until 5:24 the game ended (because I can not connect directly from the organizers to get the last runner’s time, I had to set a maximum time 5:24 , the distance is 97 km, I think no one can reach this distance), and then the screen will show the next race time, countdown, so in Google Earth, you can watch around the game at the same time.

I have ever created a model of a cable system called the Maokong Gondola in 2007. I not only modeled the Maokong Gondola GE File, but also created a time animation showing it in use. GEB had been reported this event.

It’s more than nine years, although the Mokong Gondola has been operating very stable, but with the evolution of Google Earth’s features, my work can not work any more. All you can see just left leaning barren, some still buried in the ground. I had thought to use the “Tour” funtion to create a new work. In previous years I have no idea, until the end of last year, I made a “Ascending Mt Xue Tour“, which is six routes while moving, the Maokong Gondola has 147 cable cars, the moving logic is the same.

It’s a big project, because all the models: stations, poles, cabins have to be created, especially difficult it is that I have to manually fine-tune the position of the cable to fit with track pillars, and it took a lot of time, when the hardware is ready, the next step is to write the program to generate “Tour” kml, to let all cabins to move along the track synchronously.

Finally, I have to plan a flight route to navigate through the cable system. This tour starts from above Taipei fly to ground, In addition, because the current Google Earth satellite imagery is photoed in 2006, at the same time the cable system were just under construction, all the material of the models I made are taken from the current imagery (2016), so it is necessary to use current imagery to let the models dissolved in background, but when you looked down at high altitude, you will see the ground covered by different periods imagery at different place, it is inappropriate, so at begining, I use the current google earth imagery, and when flying to the ground the imagery are switched to the current imagery.

At the end of the flight, I would view Taipei 101 as background, zoom in, and then moved to the position of the sunset, then it have to use the sun mode.

In addition you can watch the youtube above, you can download this KMZ file, and operate in Google Earth.

Kumamoto Castle (熊本城 Kumamoto-jō) is a hilltop Japanese castle located in Chūō-ku, Kumamoto in Kumamoto Prefecture. It was a large and extremely well fortified castle. The castle tower (天守閣 tenshukaku) is a concrete reconstruction built in 1960, but several ancillary wooden buildings remain of the original castle. Kumamoto Castle is considered one of the three premier castles in Japan, along with Himeji Castle and Matsumoto Castle. Thirteen structures in the castle complex are designated Important Cultural Property.

Kumamoto county occurred the Richter scale 7.3 earthquake in April 16, 2016, Kumamoto city hit severely, “it may take more than 10 years to repair Kumamoto Castle”, when the media constantly reports, I use Google Earth as usual to know Kumamoto castle, I found Kumamoto city is a 3D city in Google Earth, and the “Kumamoto castle” is even more spectacular! Especially Google Street View has almost be covereged, and there are five indoor street view. this let me rising an idea to create a street view virtual tour in Google Earth, especially when I recently developed a “Street View Tour generator“. It is a great tool, and I can use kumamoto castle as a real case, but also greatly modify the generator.Continue reading →

Google Taiwan announced in March this year (2016) , they finished the most tough task to extent street view coverage to Yushan – the highest mountain(altitude 3952 meter) in Taiwan. As long as you move your finger, follow the arrow on ground to forward, backward, or move the rotary motion picture, etc. You will be able to enjoy the beauty of Yushan, but most likely you’ll slide lost in wild, so I should like to make further automated street view tour for the entire route . Now it seems, Google Earth’s Tour feature is an excellent platform for navigation, Yes! it is possible to record directly with the Tour in Google Earth, but the process is quite difficult, and very prone to failure, so it had to use another way that you can edit to record the street view couse, I call it “street view route”. I spent a lot of effort to edit a street view route from Paiyun Lodge to Peak. Then through the “Street View Tour Generator”, convert to “Google Earth Street View Tour”. Above youtube is the final outcome.

This article is to share this “StreetView Tour Generator”, although Google Earth is very easy to use, but to make this “Street View Tour” still have to take the time and patience, those who are interested, please read on it…Continue reading →

Inspired by the GEBfireworks generator, I tried it with Taipei 101 (Latitude:25.033903,Longitude:121.564510), and I got this result.
This seems good, but maybe those fireworks’ altitudes are too low . In addition, with the fixed view angle, some fireworks was blocked. So I decided to write a program to raise up the altitudes of all placemarks in the KML file by +500 meters, and I wrote another program to make an orbit around Taipei 101, and mixed with the original kml tour. This kmz file is my work, as reference to everyone.

With this view surrounding method, How to show something in this cylindrical space surrounded area? Various possibilities sprout in my mind. Followed by the Chinese spring festival just around the corner, I had the idea! I thought I could make numerous couplets fall down from heaven, I collected more than 100 couplets as icon database, Accompanied with the “happy lunar year” music, I made the “couplets generator”.

You can play the tour in the downloaded KML to see the couplets. Or, you can download the kmz file and get the location directly in Google Earth.

Now that I can fall down the couplets, I think the Taiwan Sky Lantern Festival, there are thousands of sky lanterns floating in the sky, compared with the former, they are different direction, So I have to modify the program and get two sky lantern icons, and set the timestamp, andaccompanied with another “happy chinese festival” music and make the “sky lanterns generator”.

Also You can play the tour in the downloaded KML to see the sky lanterns fly up. Or, you can download the kmz file and get the location directly in Google Earth.